


you should see me (in a crown)

by cardinalrachelieu



Category: wicked saints
Genre: (and i use the word 'smut' generously here), F/M, next time kids, sadly there is not very much philosophical foreplay, throne smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinalrachelieu/pseuds/cardinalrachelieu
Summary: Nadya wound a hand in Malachiasz’s tunic, black linen folding around her fingers as she drew him closer. The hush of fabric was too loud in the empty hall, too blatant—a shout in the dark. Thankfully, the gods weren’t listening.---or,if i squint hard enough i can shove throne!smut into the canon timeline





	you should see me (in a crown)

Nadya wound a hand in Malachiasz’s tunic, black linen folding around her fingers as she drew him closer. The hush of fabric was too loud in the empty hall, too blatant—a shout in the dark. Thankfully, the gods weren’t listening.

Milky pinks and oranges filtered through the tall windows, the soft rainbow of morning, same in Tranavia as it was in Kalyazin. Even the smog couldn’t block out dawn. It seemed wrong, somehow. She’d always pictured enemy land as grey and pale, void of color, void of life. Things were simpler then, when she’d been wrapped in the holy trappings of ignorance, before the truth had complicated matters.

Before him.

Malachiasz tipped his chin back, a defiant sort of confidence about his stare. A challenge. Iron grilles cut swirling shadows onto the polished marble floor, onto the gilded, hideous throne, onto the boy beneath her. Malachiasz pitched his gaze up, ice-blue eyes bright in the cold hollows of his mask. It was a horrid thing made of metal and misery.

 _“Does it frighten you?”_ he’d asked earlier, back in his room, his fingers tracing idle patterns along her spine, movements casual yet stilted. Sleep clung thickly to his voice. It made him seem fragile, in a way. Human.

She set the mask down and turned to him. _“Hardly.”_

_“It should.”_

A sly smile pulled at Nadya’s lips. _“You forget,_ Veshyen Yaliknevo _”_ —she lingered on the syllables of his title, and he winced— _“I’ve seen the face beneath.”_ She crawled over the ruined sheets and settled herself against his side, tipped his chin so he had to look at her. _“I know the mask is a lie.”_

He quirked an eyebrow, jaw tight. _“Is it now.”_

Malachiasz got them both up and led her to the sanctuary, mask dangling in his hand, shoulders stiff. Tension rolled off him in waves, dark as his magic, dense as chimney smoke.

 _“This is who I will be when you kill the king,”_ he’d said, and slipped the mask over his face as he sat down on the Carrion Throne. _“This is who I am now, though you refuse to see it.”_

Stupidly, she’d ascended the dais, a fever spurring her to madness. She would not let him win this. She would not let him drive her away. _“Perhaps I need to take a closer look.”_

Now, she sat astride his lap, golden bones stabbing at her knees, pressing on her shins, scraping against her dignity. The throne was uncomfortable, but he was soft, and the ache between her thighs demanded attention, demanded him—heretic or no. This was foolish and shortsighted and reckless. A proper scandal. Marzenya would be furious with her.

 _Good,_ she thought, and kissed him.

He tasted of wine and copper. And regret. All the better; monsters weren’t meant to be sweet.

Nadya gave a testing roll of her hips, and Malachiasz tightened his grip on her waist.

“Nadezhda Lapteva,” he whispered against her lips, Tranavian tongue catching on the consonants of her name, turning them sharp, honing them to his liking. His iron mask threw a cold aura against her skin, and she shivered. “You are playing a dangerous game.”

“I am not playing.”

Malachiasz tugged Nadya down, hands a vise around her hips as he pressed her almost painfully closer to him. _All_ of him. Her breath caught in her throat. “Careful, _towy dżimyka_ ,” he said. “I might believe you.”

Nadya slipped her hands under the neckline of his tunic. He ran hot, like fresh coals were trapped just beneath his skin. Were all blood mages like that, or just him? She rocked her hips, and Malachiasz groaned. “I might want you to,” she whispered.

A low note hung in his chest—the last attempt at a warning Nadya had no intention of heeding—and then his mouth was on hers, hungry and desperate. Malachiasz slid his hands under her shift, and she started at his touch—so sure, so bold. So unlike everything she knew.

She wanted more.

Nadya ground her hips against him, and he tensed, spat out a word she didn’t understand. Over the past few weeks, she’d come to hate Tranavian—such a rigid language full of sounds like boulders crashing together—but it suited Malachiasz in a way that her native Kalyazi didn’t. His tongue prefered the shape of dissonance.

Cool, pointed iron threatened Nadya’s ribs—his claws—and, gods forgive her, it made her ache for him deepen, spread, consume. One can only live with heretics for so long before it catches.

Malachiasz broke the kiss, moved his attention to her neck, the top of her shoulder where her shift had yielded a patch of skin. She gasped, then settled into a slow but clumsy rhythm, tangled her hands in his long, unruly hair.

Malachiasz pulled back to look up at her, blue eyes clear and honest. His too-long teeth glinted in the early dawn light. “Nadya—”

The doors to the sanctuary banged open. “Next time you elect to disappear,” Rashid said, voice half-wild and half-triumphant, “would you mind—” The Akolan pulled a face like he’d swallowed his own tongue.

Nadya flushed and went horribly, utterly still.

Malachiasz drew in a long breath, let it out even slower. He carefully removed his hands from beneath Nadya’s top—could Rashid tell? How much had he seen? It was an important factor in measuring _exactly_ how mortified she should be currently, straddling Malachiasz on top of his own damn skeletal throne.

Malachiasz sighed. “Did you need something, Rashid?”

Rashid gulped.

“ _Rashid._ ”

Rashid frantically shook his head.

“Then leave.”

Rashid nodded, just as frantically, then turned on his heel and left without another word.

The echo of the doors took ages to fade, and Nadya didn’t move—didn’t breathe—the entire time. What had she been thinking? What had they been about to do? If Rashid hadn’t interrupted them—

“Nadya.”

She startled—would’ve fallen backwards off the throne if Malachiasz hadn’t had his arms around her. Nadya blinked. He’d taken his mask off. The tattoos on his forehead drew together, and he gently tucked a lock of fiery red hair behind her ear.

“Parijahan is probably waiting for you,” he said softly.

She swallowed.

“Before you go—” Malachiasz brought his other hand up. The tip of his thumb welled with blood, and he hovered it in front of her face, waiting.

The glamour. She’d almost forgotten. Strangely, she didn’t want him to remove it. Strangely, she’d become attached to the lie, to the way he’d taken to looking at her, to the proximity of him. Which meant it was _definitely_ time to remove the glamour.

Nadya nodded, silently terrified by the thought of having his magic stripped from her, of what the raw world would feel like against her skin again. She closed her eyes and held her breath. It had felt so wrong the last time Malachiasz used his magic on her, but she was ready for it now. She knew what to expect.

Or so she thought.

Malachiasz touched his thumb to her lower lip, and heat cracked through her, swirling across her skin, over her scalp. It tingled. The darkness was still there, but it was less than before; familiar, almost. She leaned into the touch, savored the feel of his knuckle braced under her chin, the hot tang of his magic coursing through her. He was done a moment later.

When Nadya opened her eyes, Malachiasz had a severe sort of slant to his brow. “What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious in a way she hated. Did he prefer her the other way? Did she care what he thought?

He twirled a strand of her silver-white hair around his index finger, gaze flitting from the crown of her head to her lips to her cheeks to her eyes. “I had almost forgotten how striking you are.”

Nadya didn’t know what to say to that.

Malachiasz let the ringlet fall against her temple. “Do you know the way back to the room?”

Nadya tilted her head. “You’re not coming?”

“I have things to attend to.” His voice went hard in all the wrong places, and his eyes lost their truth. “I’ll see you this evening.”

He wasn’t telling her something.

But he’d asked for her trust, just as she’d asked for his, so this _one_ secret she’d let him keep. For now.

Nadya left the sanctuary, adjusting her shift as she walked. On her way through the towering black doors, she cast a glance over her shoulder. Malachiasz sat on his throne, forearms braced against his thighs, mask cradled in his black-lined hands. He was staring at it—the face of the Black Vulture.

The face he wore for others.

Or maybe Malachiasz was the face he wore for her. Maybe the boy playing monster was an act. Maybe the monster had fooled them all.

The great door shut, and Nadya was alone in the hallway, cool stone beneath her feet and a sideways feeling lodged in her chest. Malachiasz would keep his word.

He would.

He had to.

But if he didn’t, she was prepared to do what was necessary. She was, she was, _she was_.

.

.

.

_(She was not.)_

**Author's Note:**

> this book Whooped My Ass, dear gods i need a _NAP_
> 
> @emily if u ever see this: i wanna fight u in a denny's parking lot, holy _shit_ these characters are SO FUN and i'm MAD ABOUT IT
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading! come yell at me on [tumblr](http://yalenayardeen.tumblr.com) ;)


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